Brands Create Customers

“No one wants a relationship with their mustard.”

Kara Swisher uses this quote (from an ad agency exec) to begin her post, Social ads not cutting the mustard? She examines why widgets and other forms of “social advertising” haven’t (yet) lived up to their billing.

She continues:

This odd but spot-on observation was about why big packaged-goods advertisers–who are the really big spenders of the ad business–might be less than interested in leveraging social-media advertising and its promise of deep engagement with consumers.

No one wants to interact over mustard or mayo or ketchup or most products that pay the rent up and down Madison Avenue.

Brands and the big picture

In a narrow sense Kara is quite correct: we don’t need to chat with our jar of Grey Poupon, or have it update our Google calendar, or follow us around on Twitter. But no one really expects that, either. Such a focus on the jar or the tin is myopic. In the big picture of things—where brands play—relationships with products like mustard are very important indeed. They’re the essence of brands. What counts is the context of the relationship, and the ability of the brand itself to make that context sustainably engaging.

In brands, context is king

From a brand perspective, the blanket statement that, “No one wants a relationship with their mustard” is self-limiting. It precludes brand opportunities. Consumers can be open to such relationships—if they’re meaningful. Using mustard as an example, mustard brands have been designed to be very rich in relationships for decades. They certainly want relationships with their customers, beginning with brand trust and brand loyalty. And they certainly want their customers to have relationships with them—beginning with the brand experience of a consistently tasty product. These relationships are money in the bank.

A context for mustard?

The most straightforward context for mustard is to partner with customers in the discovery of taste. The brand is a guide and adventurer, rather than a mere purveyor. This opens up multiple opportunities in the desired brand journey.

Building the brand enthusiast

Customers who use a particular mustard will often swear by it, testifying to their relationship. If they also use it for marinades, sauces and dressings, the mustard will play a significant role in their recipe repertoire and cooking lifestyle. This places the mustard in the brand Nirvana of the enthusiast, and believe me, in that space will be a relationship. Weber understands this quite well, for example. And would Weber ever think, even for a second, that people don’t want a relationship with their grill?

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As I discussed in a previous post, companies are increasingly turning to digital brand platforms, programs and applications to augment brand interactions and brand experience, and to deliver new forms of customer value. In this post I want to focus on a new type of digital brand application which I call (in my best generic English) personal brand applications.

[UPDATE] See new post: Building your brand — there’s an app for that

Also see:

• NPR creates a personal brand application
  Personal brand applications: conceptual examples
• A personal brand application from Whole Foods

What are personal brand applications?

Personal brand applications are software applications that deliver unique brand value to customers in ways that are personal, portable and persistent. Their intent is to form a brand partnership with the customer, with a depth of interaction far beyond conventional channels of brand communication. They become the customer’s virtual sidekick, mentor, confidant and guide. They watch the customer’s back, they go where the customer goes, and they are “always on.”

As a complement to other brand programs, personal brand applications are a new way for brands to connect with customers 24/7. They are 1:1, direct and immediate. They have the potential to forge deep brand connections that can transcend the influence of advertising, packaging, “branding” and similar old-school brand modalities.

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If we ask ourselves to identify the current movers and shakers in the world of brands, we would probably end up with a short list of design firms, ad agencies, brand consultants, celebrated product designers—such as Jonathan Ive at Apple—and a handful of top-tier corporate brand wizards.

Interaction designers: the new rock stars of brands?

They will soon have company. The emerging rock stars of brands may well be interaction designers. As brands move to digital platforms to help create customers, interaction designers will play a key role in determining which brands thrive, and which fall by the wayside. This will be especially true as more companies migrate to personal brand applications and multi-threaded brands.

Brands are interfaces and interactions

The ascent of interaction design to a critical role in brands is largely due to the changing nature of brands themselves. The new reality of brands is that they’re programs to deliver value through customer interfaces and interactions. They’re no longer the realm of top-down symbols, slogans and promises. In their new mode, brands are more social and cultural than “corporate.” They’re collaborative expressions of companies and their customers, formed in a structured process that builds the brand from the customer up.

Some definitions:

1. A brand interface is where the brand works with customers
2. A brand interaction is how the brand works with customers

Yes, brands work with customers. The brands that count are working brands, not display brands. They’re brands that roll up their sleeves and team with customers to get things done.

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If you want your brand to innovate, you need to make it hackable. You have to cultivate brand hacks. Make your brand so your customers can grab it, bend it, and extend it, adding their initiative and intelligence to develop new forms of brand value.

Brands, culture and customers

Donna Bogatin has a nice post on how customers “configure culture” by altering product offerings—or inventing their own products—to meet their needs.

Donna cites a Radar Research report that lists these elements as typical of “configurable culture:”

1. Instantaneous
2. Editable
3. Global
4. Networked
5. Multi-sensory
6. Interoperable
7. Archival
8. Customizable
9. Hackable

These are also the qualities of a brand on the move.

Use brand API’s to cultivate brand hacks

The easiest way to cultivate brand hacks is to invite customers into your brand via brand API’s. Brand API’s are interactive application program interfaces. They provide convenient latch points for customers to grab onto brands and proactively shape the brand to their needs, in the process advancing themselves through the brand. The best brand API’s help convert customer initiative into brand initiative, through better brand content, context and value.

Make this process a team effort where your brand is a method for solving shared problems. Shape it as a partnership where you and your customers are on the same page because you’re writing it together.

Hack the context to create new value

When you develop your brand as a platform for brand hacks, the hacks you aim for are new contexts for your brand and your business. In other words, brand hacks are ways that customers can extend the scope of your business, by finding new applications and contexts of value. Through brand hacks, customers become your allies in innovation. And innovating a new context can be just as valuable as innovating a new product—and sometimes more so.

Brands are code

We should never forget that brands are code. The more brand programmers you can enlist, the more avenues your brand can explore.

Most people don’t realize it, but brands are code. At their core level, brands have much more in common with software development than they do with logos and product identities. Think of brands as a form of software. In fact, brands should be viewed as an extension of the product development process itself, rather than as a separate, multi-media “add-on” just before product launch.

This is because brands are much more than symbols, slogans and promises. Brands are programs to create customers. And as programs, they’re built of . . . code.

In this snapshot, let’s take a look at some of the reasons why brands are code, beginning at the outside and working in.

Unlocking brand code

First, some interesting similarities between brands and software:

• Both have architectures.

• They have roadmaps.

• They have platforms

• They have programs.

• They have interfaces.

• Brands and software are both executables.

• They have developers, and end-users.

• And most importantly, they have innovation rich API’s.

Brands have a language, too. In fact, they are written in only one language. It is called CUSTOMER. It is a language that is infinitely interoperable.

What brand builders code

At a basic level, brand builders code customer solutions into the product. In this interactive process, they also code the whole customer back into the company. This enables customer DNA to flow through a company, through its employees, operations and innovations. At a more advanced level, brand builders code new freedoms into the customer through the brand, enabling customers to rise above commodities and other brands. In effect, they create a branded customer platform that advances the customer beyond what products alone can provide.

Brands as executables

Of course, brands are not static images or frozen icons. Brands are action-oriented. They work for customers, and they get things done. In other words, brands are executables. Every brand is a “.exe.” When you execute on brand, you deliver value that customers can use. Strategically, your brand should be advancing customers beyond the reach of competitors.

How brand code works

Simply stated, brands are code for creating value. Their architectures, platforms, programs and interfaces transform latent product value into value realized by the customer. (This is no easy task.) At their best, brands do this in such satisfyingly brilliant ways that the customer leaves his or her old customer shell behind, and embraces the new brand going forward. When a great brand connects, there’s no turning back.

How exactly does a brand do this? First, brand building begins at the core of a company. Brands are not add-ons after the fact. Brands are a process of architecting customer progress into the product roadmap. Yep, the operative word is “progress.” The goal of a brand is to advance customers to progressively proactive levels, so in future months and years they will be demanding all those cool innovations you have up your sleeve. Thus, your brand strategy is part and parcel of your innovation strategy.

Cultivate brand hacks

Agile brands, like agile code, call for iterative development. This is one reason why your brand should cultivate brand hacks as part of its deployment strategy.

Photo: amysphere — Flickr